If you see your reflection in the top of a French tarte, a pastry chef has achieved the Nirvana of pastrydom...I attended the Lyon World Pastry Cup in '95.Those pastry chefs welded 10" wide bristle brushes of abricotage like it was the World Series. I was taking pictures but I missed that shot. 12 top chefs sat at a long table in full view of the audience, judging and tasting the various team's desserts. Was "gloss" was a factor in judging on a scale of 1 - 10?Gloss/abricotage is on Pierre Herme's pastry palette.

22 comments:

Thats like buying Apples..Dont you go for the nice shinny polished looking one over a dull lack luster apple even tho it should have the same taste? and the operative word is SHOULD. ;-)My mouth is watering now. Just from the pictures. ;-)Cris in OR

But I've got to say, as much as I LOVE the gloss it is your images of cups that take me away. Isn't it funny, the things that will get people all excited? Cups, I love those cups. Maybe it is the fantasy of sitting there on the street having the coffee and the satisfaction of the empty cup. I don't know, maybe it is because it seems the french don't fool around when it comes to cups, they are sturdy and they seem to say "I mean business". *sigh*

The way the dish looks and how appetizing it looks is a big factor in all these cooking competitions. It's crazy really, but if you see all the entries in competitions like that one and other ones like the "Best French Artisan" competitions, you realize quickly that it's so hard to differentiate between 18 different versions of the same dish, that any little bit helps. I love to abricoter. But on strawberry tarts I do it with Strawberry jam...évidemment =)

I really don't like all that glazing. There is a fabulous bakery between Maury and Perpignan. They have the biggest wood oven I've ever seen. Their breads and pissaladiere are great but it's the tarts, esp the pear or walnut that bring me back. No glaze.xxxx

Everything looks soooo good~you are absolutely correct about the French and their passion for "glossiness." I was able to pick up a glossy-mixture at the grocery over there trying to duplicate this incredible topping look~i think it requires one to be a hell of a baker~I am not! Your pictures are wonderful!

killing me! you are KILLING me...I am on a "you-know-what" and this is just cruel and unusual punishment!

I am going to view all those tarts as A*R*T...like you do. They are gorgeous, aren't they? Mouthwateringly gorgeous. And the abricotage, yummiest ever! Maybe when I have been really really good for one year, and dropped some weight, I can go to Paris and have just one slice...:)Lidy

"In Merisi's Vienna there's an obsession - *rofl* You are something! Did you know that, after poor Marie Antoinette had exported the art of making apricotage to the French Court, the Viennese had to think of something new, something special to top the French, and voila', Schlag entered the scene. Historians are still puzzled why Marie Antoinette only would have them "eat cake", when she knew very well, that "cake with Schlag" tastes so much better! ;-)

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